She was talking about a woman who’d been living cross-culturally for several months. I was brand-new; still full of excitement and joy and the sense of adventure. My coworker had been there for years, lived through many cycles of death.

Not physical death, of course, but the shudders of cultural death, of death-to-self, that wrack every emotion of someone in the midst of a long overseas assignment. I didn’t know it at the time, scoffed at the idea even, but death was coming for me too.

They don’t tell you that when you sign up to go live overseas. They try to warn you that the “honeymoon stage” wears off in the face of brutal poverty, unfathomably endless cultural differences, and daily frustrations that build into ear-popping pressure. But you can’t even imagine that the “end of the honeymoon stage” – which sounds like such a gentle letdown – feels so much like dying.

***

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me,” Jesus said.

Jesus, it seems, wasn’t interested in a following as large as could be conjured up. Just when the crowd around Him reached a tipping point, He had a habit of saying something crazy that sent them scattering. Usually, something to do with death. “Eat my flesh and drink my blood,” he said. “Make death-to-self your daily focus.”

He wasn’t necessarily talking about physical death, of course. He was talking about a decision to no longer consider yourself the primary concern. He was talking about a love for Him so passionate that all other attachments look like hatred. But then there are those for whom faith has meant physical death – and they died that death too.

We tend not to tell people this when they sign up for the Christian life. We advertise the honeymoon stage, the “God has a wonderful plan for your life”. Which… He does. It’s just that the “wonderful plan” involves a lot that feels so much like dying.

***

On the other side of death, there is resurrection.

We dunk under the waters in baptism, but – oh! – we also bring you back up.

At the end of the letdown, there is a commitment stronger and more refined than the most passionate honeymoon stage.

You’ve died. But you find that you don’t really miss the parts of you that are withered away. A little selfishness gone, a little pride, a little need-to-have-it-your-way.

And in their place a life glorious. A life spanning two worlds. A Savior-defined life.

The next season of self-death you will meet with a little more courage, a little more willingness, a little less resistance.

For who could’ve guessed that good things come from what feels so much like death.

Why will this woman not move up in line? What is her problem?! Can she not SEE the entire foot of space between her and the person who just moved forward? If she doesn’t move in five seconds, I’m taking that space. 5. 4. 3. 2… FINALLY! Oh my gosh, woman, you don’t even know how close you just came to losing your place!

And that is a peek into the mind of someone slightly sleep deprived and massively overwhelmed.
Someone attempting to slip back into American culture after two-and-a-half years in South Asia, where even five inches of room between you and the next person in line is an indication that you no longer expect to go next.
Someone who, five minutes later, begins to reflect on the ugly situation that could’ve occurred if she’d butted in line.
Someone who was horrified to discover just how impatient she’d become.

As you may have guessed, that someone was me.

Of all the things about re-entering my home culture that have been difficult, I think one of the major ones has been re-adjusting my set of values. Re-adjusting my expectations for what “we” as a group are supposed to value. I’ve come to the conclusion that there are a lot of values – most, in fact – that exist in every culture. Truth, modesty, time, relationships – they’re there in every culture. It’s just that each culture goes about ranking each value differently – put one ahead of the other.

For example, truth versus relationship. South Asian culture would rank relationship over truth – to the extent that it’s considered morally better to lie than lose a friend. Western culture, on the other hand, is more likely to say what it thinks even if that means jeopardizing a relationship.

My impatience with that woman in line was less about the foot of space she hadn’t moved into and more about conflicting ideas of how lines “are done”. We each valued something different about lines. She clearly valued the order, the predictability of a line. Knowing that she could take an extra second to fiddle with her luggage and coffee mug without losing her spot. I was still in the mode of valuing efficiency, awareness, and movement in a line – personal space be forgotten!

That’s the trouble and blessing of these in-between times. Because when I lived only in the US, I wasn’t conscious of how my birth culture ranked things – there was only “right”. In South Asia, I consciously set aside my value rankings in favor of adopting another set. And now? Now there are two competing ranking systems in my brain. Priorities are murky. I vacillate between impatience (because what I think should be happening is opposite from what everyone else is thinking) and complete indecisiveness (because I can’t remember what’s “appropriate” anymore).

It’s interesting, now, to have the occasion to consciously rank my priorities. To be aware there are two different – even opposite – ways of looking at a situation. To have the opportunity to choose what value takes first place in a given situation.

When was the last time you had two different values staring you in the face? Perhaps between what the group thought and what you thought? How did you make the decision?

Where is the FREAKING soap?! Where is it? Why can these people not arrange these aisles more sensibly? Where is a store employee when you need one? Is this what you call American customer service? I wish I was back in India where you just tell the storekeeper what you need and he brings it out from the back!
Oh my gosh – am I losing it in this store? Am I going to meltdown right here?
Just leave the soap. Take your other stuff and check out.
No, no. Turn back. You need soap – what are you going to do: not shower? Just read the signs above the aisle, look for soap. I don’t see soap on those signs. Why don’t they list soap?
Are you SERIOUSLY crying right now? Why are you crying? This is not okay. Just find the soap and get out of here. What is your problem?

Thus runs my inner monologue these days. In the middle of a nice, big, clean, organized grocery store I stand, quietly having a meltdown. Wondering if I’m about to crack along the fault lines of re-entry and culture, stress and anxiety. I can’t say I wasn’t warned – over and over and over. But it’s one thing to be told and therefore know that something is going to be difficult, stressful, fantastic. It’s completely something else to experience and therefore know it.

I wanted to journal and blog through re-entering American culture… to have the ability to reduce experience to a nice set of bullet points, three well-reasoned 500 word posts a week. To capture in words and possibly a few pictures the unfettered joy of being with loved ones again after a long absence, the confusion of cultures crossed once again.

But, alas, my trusty set of words has abandoned me. Powers of explanation and writing have failed me. I find myself having wordless, descriptionless meltdowns in stores because I cannot find the soap. Which, after all, can only be within the three aisle radius in front of me.

In this cage that is personal experience – it’s comforting to know there are people nearby. People who understand – or are at least willing to listen. To let me grieve something they’ve been dealing with for a year now. To open doors and wait patiently for me to stumble through. To keep calm and carry on, as the British slogan says, waiting for me to stop having a meltdown long enough to ask where the soap is.

That’s what’s been happening with me lately! What’s up with you? When was the last time you experienced something too overwhelming to put into words?